Frayed Knot

It's more like the weight/sweet spot has been shifted. The fattest part of these new bats is now slightly closer to handle causing the previously fattest part to start to taper a bit towards the very end. You can always make a bigger sweet spot merely by adding more wood. But of course more wood means more weight which is not what most hitters want, plus there are upper limits on both weight and length. This bat simply takes some of the heft from the end and shifts it inward while keeping the weight more or less the same although a 'torpedo' bat may feel lighter than a same weight traditional one because the weightier portion is now closer to the hands. A ball now hit off the 'new' sweet spot isn't going to have anymore juice behind it than one previously hit off the traditional sweet spot since it's not a bigger barrel, it's just a slightly relocated barrel. In fact it might even have somewhat less oomph since the center of the bat is traveling more slowly than the end no matter how fat or thin it is. But for those players who feel that that they make contact towards the middle of the bat more often than they do off the traditional barrel (and in this age of hard throwers that's not hard to fathom) then maybe the new design could help them make more solid contact more often, or even just stay alive in an AB more often.

Obviously too small a sample to draw any conclusions yet. Yanx hit 15 HRs in their first three games but, AFAIK, only Jazz Chisholm, (3) Anthony Volpe (2) and Clay Bellinger (1) are using the 'Torpedo' bat. Judge (5) says he has no interest in changing anything ... and why would he! The theory behind this is to get a better result when getting jammed by a pitch. But you wouldn't think those would turn into HRs. Bloops over the IF, maybe, instead of wood-shattering dribblers.

The bats in question simply have the 'barrel' (the fattest part) closer to the center of the bat while the end starts to taper. They're perfectly legal as they don't exceed length or weight limits, the weight is merely redistributed. Volpe and Chisholm are using them so far.

Would like to see him hook on somewhere, but the idea that Dom has much of a career left is quickly fading from view. So back to the Yanx for a sec: their first three opponents this year, and four of their first five, are NL clubs. Host the Brews for three games, then the same for the DBacks. After that they hit the road for the Pirate's home opening series followed, finally, by a series in Detroit, after which they return home to for three games vs the Giants.

New year means new thread IMO 1,255 -- Hayden Senger

It's the execution AND the lack of originality of the idea for me. Oooh, let's do a variation of something that half the teams in the league beat us to years ago. And then there's the lack of overall theme and the cheap "Let's Make A Deal" looking costumes.

I was just about to remark how much better it is this afternoon ... and then it balked and delayed at allowing my last post to go through.

Plus, if you're going to have a race rip-off at least have a little more originality with the runners. Like maybe a Brooklyn Hipster racing against a Staten Island Mobster (and I mean real hipsters and mobsters, not just someone in costume) against a Bronx Rapper and an actual Drag Queen from Queens, maybe from that airport bar Big Al was at all those years ago. And for Manhattan you entice the subway pizza rat from several years back out of retirement. I mean, he'd never win (particularly while dragging that slice with him everywhere) but folks would root for him for sure. P.S. I hope they're not expecting G, K & R to enthusiastically support this.

"Season ticket base" could have several interpretations. Maybe more partial plans have been sold meaning that more names are now attached to season tickets without necessarily meaning more tickets sold.

Stearns is responsible for the on field product. I highly doubt this is his doing. Cast your gaze instead towards Uncle Steve and his smoke machine blowing/fireworks spewing/dugout roof dancing/retired number-of-the-month promotional crew.

You obviously meant for this to go into the 2025 passings thread, not 2024 The family vacation, where several fell ill, was in Costa Rica, although no further details have emerged.

When Cole came up lame in ST last season (and wound up missing most of the first half of the season) I opined that his loss might be bigger than any one player to his team. I based that on my assessment of the Yanx losing the reigning CY winner combined with their thin rotation behind him. Turned out they had the best staff in the majors while he was out thanks to some serious overachieving by others including the unforeseen (at least by me) emergence of the eventual RoY in Luis Gil. But in the second half the others started regressing to their means and the staff as a whole was actually worse with Cole in the rotation than it had been while he was out. But this time it's Cole for the entire season and Gil is already out for at least the first half. They added a bunch of offensive parts in an attempt to make up for the loss of Soto but really only Max Fried on the pitching side. And while he'll surely help, they're then dependent on a combo of Stroman, Clarke Schmidt, Carlos Rodon, and ... ? Rookie Will Warren? NRIs Carlos Carrasco and/or Alan Winans?? And then there's old favorite TBA.

I'm also dubious about Henry VIII writing GREENSLEEVES (for Anne Boleyn of course) but folks in power claiming publishing rights are nothing new.

'Lat Strains' for pitchers seems to be the chic injury to get this Spring. The Yanx' 2025 ROY starter Luis Gil has a "high grade" one and is looking at an ASB return at the earliest. I think it would have been better if he strained either his heel or one of his gills, but I guess ya can't have everything.

Didn't see them two either.

Never saw it. Don't remember even contemplating watching it.

Giancarlo Stanton will open the season on the IL. Elbow issues.

Sudden thought as we're on the eve of the Oscars here. There's a small part as a black bluesman named Brownie McGhee in COMPLETE UNKNOWN. He was the guy on the public TV piece with Pete Seeger and Dylan. There's nothing wrong with the part as I guess it's meant to show how 'folkie' Dylan had always had at least one foot in R&R/blues and would therefore never be as 'pure' as the folk crowd wanted. But the part seemed maybe a bit too big to me and not really necessary for the story. Other characters with larger connections to Bob in that era (Dave Van Ronk for instance) were on screen but with much smaller parts and not even identified by name. And it's not like the thought that Dylan was never the wholly committed Folkie some fans wanted him to be wasn't conveyed in numerous other ways in the flick. So while I'm going to assume that the Dylan/McGhee TV meeting actually took place, was there any other connection between the two that made his character relevant? And then it hit me. Did they write in this part because, without one, there would have been no significant speaking parts for black actors and therefore, by the rules Hollywood put in several years ago, no possibility of an Oscar nomination much less a potential win?

Nothing was said about their long-running 'no hair past the collar' rule, so I guess that one's still in place. The humorous part of MFY image keeping was when they had Jason Giambi (plus one of their pitchers though I forget now which) who always wore arm sleeves as if recovering from some injury. Except it was really so the team could pretend that they'd never have a Yanqui with tattoos. That unofficial policy lasted until they simultaneously signed AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia for their 2009 squad and those guys' arms were so tatted up that they would have to play in burqas in order to hide the evidence, so the gig was up.

More likely it was to try and create a trade market for him.

It all of course stemmed from when George first bought the team in the early '70s when it was assumed by George-like people that anyone with longer hair and beards was a hippie, fag, commie. One of his early memos became famous at the time. It was early enough to where he still didn't know many of the players' names but he wasn't going to let that stop him. So he left a note to one of his underlings to the effect that: 'numbers 15, 23, and 31 need haircuts!!!'

"The answer to all your questions is 'money' " -- longtime TV sports producer Don Ohlmeyer on why television made a particular decision or chose a certain path Of course it comes down to money. Not sure how long the MLB/ESPN package had to run but Manfred, no doubt looking ahead to what happens whenever it was scheduled to end, likely figured 'this partnership isn't doing us much good as it is so why not get out now?' and I suspect that ESPN was only too happy to agree.

I doubt that this is the whole truth as to why this (35 year?) partnership is ending, but good for Manfred for framing it this way. When it first started, the four letter network couldn't get enough baseball: four to five games per week including the Sunday Night exclusive, BB2N every night, and hosts that were at least conversant in the sport. But in recent years, aside from the SN game itself and the lead up to it, the programming on most of the rest of the various ESPN 'platforms' either ignores or insults baseball. The question of what replaces this is going to be interesting and quite possibly not in a good way.

So this makes DJT a real man?!?!?!!

"Likely"? Sure. But we all thought the other guy was likely too. btw, if Pete plays more or less everyday* and HRs at the same rate as last season, he'll reach Straw on or about Game 129. I didn't dig through the schedule to find out exactly when that is. * as he has for almost his entire career to date. He's appeared in 846 out of a possible 870 games played from 2019-24 (over 97%) Not saying that his luck is 'due to run out' or anything but he has been remarkably fortunate so far, especially with 85 HBPs